Kimberly Hirsh

Literati: Hey if you don’t want to read a super cool book about the deep ocean as part of the Atlas Obscura book club, log in and change bookclubs by the end of the day.
Me: archives email

A little less than 12 years ago, I attended my first American Library Association Annual Conference. I’ve been to 3 more since then. My advice: focus on YALSA and GameRT. Get as many free comics as possible. If you’re exhibiting, offer candy.

In our work team meeting today we spent a significant chunk of time discussing the history of Star Trek fanfic and its trajectory from zines to web to fanbound books. And it ended up being relevant to work stuff. I love my job. 🖖🏻📚

Want to read: Meet Me by the Fountain by Alexandra Lange 📚

🔖 Today’s #1000WordsOfSummer letter is all about letting writing be fun and silly. I needed to read this today. Maybe you do, too. 📝

🔖 The Bullet Journal blog has a great interview with Tiago Forte, author of Building a Second Brain, which comes out today. I hope to get a full review up soon. Lots of good stuff in this book, will be revelatory for some & leveling up for others. 📚

Katy Peplin has a great Twitter thread on the difference between sharing your process with “This is how I do it” and “This is how you should do it.”

one thing i think about a lot as a coach and person:

there's a BIG difference between "this is how i did it" and "this is how it works best / this is how you should do it"

— Katy Peplin (@ThrivePhD) June 15, 2022

I try to write with the former attitude. Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega does this and it’s one of the things I most appreciate his writing.

I thought today I’d share one thing that address how I do it, wherein it = almost anything in life at all.

Piecemeal. In teeny, tiny fragments. I’ve written before about parenthood and kintsugi.

Yesterday, I was thinking about how I want to write more, and I had a thought about writing that was so good, I wanted to capture it. This happened in literally the one minute before M’s swim lesson started, so there I was on a deck chair by the pool with M basically in my lap (and he’s big, y’all, I love having him in my lap but it’s very different now), and took out my phone and typed out these words:

There will never be time to write. This is my life now. Prismatic. Fragmented. The bits inside a kaleidoscope. They make beautiful patterns and they can be arranged in new ways but they aren’t large. So how do I write in the fragments?

“How do I _______ in the fragments?” is the guiding question of my life. There is perpetually a giant pile of laundry at the foot of my bed. I do put the laundry away, but I put it away one item at a time, while I’m getting dressed and in between finding the things I want to wear on a given day.

I’m working on binding a little pamphlet-bound notebook for M. I fold a page here and there when I can.

This is how I get things done. It’s necessitated by two things: parenthood, which carries with it the eternal threat of interruption, and chronic illness, which means that while my mind loves and craves routine, my body disrupts my ability to stick to it.

So I live by this mantra: what I can, when I can.

And that’s how I get stuff done.

🔖 Nathanial White writes Disturbing the Comfortable: On Writing Disability in Science Fiction. I freewrote 1100 words today on reading disability in Star Trek. I think Piers Anthony’s Killobyte might be good to put in conversation with White’s novella.

What’s that thing where your brain is like “Even leisure is too much right now”? Whatever it is, it’s happening to me. The thought of crafting or reading or playing a video game is too much. So, I guess… Star Trek time?

Hello, Internet. Please recommend to me your favorite essay collections that combine TV or other pop culture analysis with personal writing. Thank you!

Hi! Do you struggle with activities of daily living due to executive dysfunction, cognitive overload, or brain fog? I do. Autism Grown Up, a non-profit founded by my friend Dr. Tara Regan, sells checklists that can help. Today I bought the shower one.

The TNG episode, “The Masterpiece Society,” is great. 🖖🏻📺💬

“It was the wish of our founders that no one have to suffer a life of disabilities.” “Who gave them the right to decide whether or not I might have something to contribute?” - Hannah Bates and La Forge, on eugenics

🔖 Rebecca Schuman’s (@pankisseskafka) advice on being productive with long COVID is sound for anyone with chronic illness or many other disabilities. As I’m in the middle of some kind of flare due to stress, I’m going to operate in Safe Mode.

Want to read: Everything I Need I Get from You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It by Kaitlyn Tiffany 📚

Want to read: This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan 📚

Finished reading: The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories: 75th-Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Angela Carter 📚

New (well, ~40 year old) takes on old fairytales. Gorgeous language.

Austin Kleon urges us to embrace belwiderment..

He quotes Rumi:

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

This is now my overarching goal.

Today’s #1000wordsofsummer letter made me really happy. Diary writing! Noticing! And This Time Tomorrow is going on my TBR because I could use a 1996 time travel novel.

Want to read: This Time Tomorrow: A Novel by Emma Straub 📚

Yesterday’s #1000WordsOfSummer was awesome, too.

“I will de-intellectualize and re-sensualize my writing practice.” Morgan Parker

Goodnight, everybody.

I am very exhausted. Not sleepy. Not fatigued. Exhausted.

Time for a Gothic Charm School re-read. 📚

Currently reading: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter 📚

I’m just grumping it out right now so if you’re going to be interacting with me, know that. It’s not you, it’s that I’m a grump at present.